This was an excellent issue and sets the standard. Excellent layouts with crisp clear photographs. Good job and please make more like this one!
Paul
I agree! Too long until the next issue though.
Jim
PFudd - I think a lot of folks would agree with you. I personally like the format of showcasing small, medium, and large sized layouts in the same issue. Looking at Dan Jioia’s layout photos (I always scan them first), I knew his influences right away (I’ve been reading Model Railroader for going on 3 decades). Hi-Rail never looked so good. I thought Niel B’s track plan was very well done, however I would have used the former trolley loop for an O-54 return loop for the foreground Bascule bridge.
Everyone, including Dan, says it’s influenced by the HO Manchester Whatever, but I think it reminds me a little of a Clarke Dunham layout the way the trains run along and behind the building flats.
Jim
I agree on the improved CTT content, at least in regard to my interests and also like the single page “how to” articles that help “newbies” and can serve as reminders to us memory challenged old cranks----on bus wiring, signal wiring,etc. For example, a one page CTT article/drawings on the much asked question by Conventional operators on **“Two-train control using toggle switches”?[**Jan '07].
Many of us who are now essentially 100% on Command Control used to routinely operate in “Cab Control” utilizing DPDT toggles and overlook that many o-gaugers still do. Often when I am running with sound off and smoke off [always] I wonder why I have Comn Control. Then, I “get ready to rumble” and put four big articulated workhorses on the same track and I know why.
Also I enjoyed our Forum Host Bob Keller’s article regarding one of the significant changes in O-gauge railroading represented by production of the MTH diecast Challenger. I worked [argued]with Mike Wolf and Mark Hipp at MTH on getting the correct paint shade [white or yellow ?] for the lettering /numbers on the Clinchfield version of the 4-6-6-4 articulated.
During 1993 I spent hours interviewing retired Clinchfield employees in Johnson City and Erwin, Tennessee[HQ town]. They were definitive and unamimous in saying that the color was white. Along with MTH [on their first Challenger], Sunset got the color right with their 3rd Rail “Early” Challenger. But Lionel with the JLC version and later MTH with their second release incorrectly used Union Pacific yellow for the lettering/numbering.
MTH understandably as a fledgling company, was concerned with the “small market” risk of capital investment in Clinchfield versions of the Challenger. But it sold out before the UP versions and MTH was “off to the races” so to speak!
Keep up the trend CTT, I just recently renewed for 3 years.
Fudd,
I too really liked this issue.
The tiny apartment layout was a hoot, the super detailed 8x16 layout gave me some good ideas, and Niel’s layout spread and develpoment story was good too, keep us posted on the progress.
I really like the layout diagrams in CTT, especially the indicators of where the pics were snapped from. This really helps in visualiziing the layout.
This was a meaty issue…one I will need to reread.
Neil and others…keep up the good work.[8D]
(I may need to buy the CTT truck or the CTT Reefer now! Or both![:D])
Do you think that guy likes Lionel much or what?
Yeah, he is major cost center for Lionel![:D]
For those of you who liked Dan’s layout and don’t know who George Sellios is, I highly recommend the Allen Keller videos of George’s layout. I have all 3. The first was shot in 1987, 2nd in 1998, and the 3rd in 2002 or so. While I never be able to come close to their modeling ability, the videos have given me copious inspiration and motivation to get to work on my pike. Their effective use of both color and weathering is the special touch.
Paul
WAAAAAAAAAAA! Now I really want my COPY! Chief, please tell my you still have the pile of magazines that need to be autographed. I don’t understand how such a difference between where you live and when you get your CTT.
Dennis
I picked up my copy at the local B&N this afternoon, followed by lunch at Wendys. Looking forward to some relaxing reading this evening.
CTT should have required Chief to register his “World Famous Bass Boat” for the photo shoot on the front cover![;)][;)][:P][:o)] They also should have added the following: “No Fish were harmed in the production of the front Cover & any resemblence to a real bass boat fisherman is both Coincendental & very funny”[;)][:D][4:-)][oX)][:P][:o)][:o)] Take Care.
Dennis: Being northwest of the Chief didn’t help me much - got my copy 2 days after he did! Maybe we are just too rural and have to wait for Pony Express! [(-D]
Chief: May have an answer to your F15 ??? - Heard there were UFO sightings around Lake Norman again - maybe that’s what they are checking out. [alien]
Lisa : it does sound like you’re onto something, but I’m not going to be the one to say The Chief isn’t from this planet or anything like that, now. Just be careful if you live near
him is all !! [(-D][(-D][(-D]
Thanks, John
You haven’t gotten your subscription yet??? I saw the new one at the bookstore two days ago. That’s weird???
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
It is a great issue…I like the variety of sizes of layouts.
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. I also thought this issue was excellent. I loved Dan Jioia’s layout. I am hopeful that, when complete, my layout will look half as good as Dan’s.
I also appreciated the Lionel transformer terminal diagrams. Since Lionel was not consistent with their lettering of terminals, the diagrams will allow me to better follow some of the forum threads pertaining to PW transformers.
Regards,
John O
I think it’s fair to say that he does. We live in a 2020 sq ft townhouse and my own layout is only 9 x 6. This dude is muy serious about his trains with a 9 x 5 in a living area significantly smaller than our living room.
A very, very good issue. The 8 x 16 layout was very nice and provided some fine ideas. I enjoyed the American Flyer Peanut car piece, too.
The story on creating water was quite useful, though for my part I can’t imagine going something other than the Realistic Water route. It’s simply too easy to do otherwise, to the extent where even a neophyte like me can’t screw it up. I’ve had to resist the temptation to turn my layout into a miniature version of Venice or Amsterdam. However, the two ponds (one for the cows, the other neatly beached with sand we brought back from the pink beaches of Bermuda) are a nice compromise.
Great issue! As a newbie, I devoured the article on making water, but another article had me puzzled.
On the final diagram of Neil Besougloff’s track plan, there’s a note by the tunnel that reads “Series of hinged doors in fascia to reach tracks in tunnel.”
Has anyone else done this, or something similar, to gain access to their tunnels? I’m planning an L-shaped layout that I hope to begin construction on soon, and wondered about access to a tunnel in the case of a derailment, etc.
I had planned to use hinged doors to access my tunnel tracks. But what I ended up doing was just leaving the back of the tunnel open, because of its location. The access doors are nice if the side of the tunnel faces where people can see it.
Jim